Mark Walsh is a contributing writer to Education Week and author of The School Law Blog. He has covered education issues for more than two decades and now looks at how schools are covered in the general news media and in the popular culture.

CBS Profiles 'Nation's Oldest Teacher'

Watching "CBS Sunday Morning" is always a pleasant way to start that day. The 90-minute show anchored by Charles Osgood is an eclectic mix of feature stories, history, film reviews, commentary, and profiles. It doesn't offer much in the way of serious education policy pieces, but then, few network TV shows do.

This past Sunday, correspondent Steve Hartman profiled Agnes Zhelesnik of North Plainfield, N.J., who teaches home economics at an elementary school. Zhelesnik is described as the nation's oldest schoolteacher. She turned 100 on Sunday.

(I'm not sure the show did exhaustive research on whether there are any retired teachers older than 100, but the point about Zhelesnik is that she is still teaching at the century mark.)

Hartman explains that Zhelesnik didn't even start teaching until she was 81 years old. She was a homemaker whose husband didn't want her to work.

This is a sweet, birthday card kind of story from Hartman, who fills the legendary Charles Kuralt's shoes as CBS' "On the Road" correspondent.

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